Web Roadmap

These are our plans for changes to our services in the near and long term. This is not an exclusive list and we encourage you to read through our Quarterly Communications to see a list of changes we make throughout the year. If you have any questions or feedback, email us at webmaster@middlebury.edu.

Q2 FY2025 (October - December 2024)

Items in italics have been carried over from last quarter.

Public Drupal Sites (www.middlebury.edu)

• Launch a new website for the radio station, WRMC 91.1 FM.
• Publish a policy for use of analytics tools, like Google Analytics, on our sites.
• Upgrade to Drupal 11.
• Develop a policy for the use of generative AI in the creation of content for our websites.
• Create an account lifecycle strategy for editor accounts to ensure that people who no longer need to edit the website are removed without disruption to ongoing editors.
• Revise and streamline the ITS site content to be more reflective of our audience needs.
• Add components to provide side-by-side groups of Audio and Image content.
• Allow bulleted lists in Event blurbs.

Frontend and Design Updates

• Develop a design system for Middlebury.
• Extra space under institutional footer on the Institute site.
• Add background color to videos in video components.
• Update chart.js to the latest version.
• Excess spacing on Two-Column Text component.
• Chart title does not appear on percentage bars.
• Chart value prefix/suffix should apply to tooltips as well as axes.
• Improve the Museum of Art logo SVG
• Improve the UWC logo quality in header and footer.

Accessibility

• Develop a report and process for video transcript compliance.
• Page does not start with a level 1 heading.
• Inline frame missing a text alternative.
• Footer blocks not contained within an ARIA landmark.
• Role with implied hidden content has keyboard focus in accordion component.
• Page region missing an accessible name in CTA Group component.

Course Hub (courses.middlebury.edu)

• Scope a new portfolio of work requests from DLINQ.

Course Catalog (catalog.middlebury.edu)

• Replace the Zend framework with Symfony.
• Update the design to match our other sites.
• Develop plan for long-term hosting of this service.

Directory (directory.middlebury.edu)

• Determine a long-term plan for this service.

GO (go.middlebury.edu)

• Determine requirements and decide on a technical approach for a new version of the application.
  • Update the theme to a new, potentially unique, design.
  • Decide on an approach to handle conflicting go.miis.edu shortcuts.
  • Develop a strategy for improving application resiliency.
  • Create a potential budget for hosting.

Drupal Forms (forms.middlebury.edu, forms.miis.edu)

• Reach out and work with users of this service, migrate and/or export their content and then retire this service.

Omeka (omeka.middlebury.edu)

• Reach out and work with users of this service, migrate and/or export their content and then retire this service.

Concerto (concerto.middlebury.edu)

• Reach out and work with users of this service, migrate and/or export their content and then retire this service.

AD Group Manager (go/groups)

• Retire this service.

CAS (login.middlebury.edu)

• Retire this service.

Calendar Year 2024 (January - December 2024)

Public Drupal Sites (www.middlebury.edu)

• Develop a policy for the use of generative AI in the creation of content for our websites.
• Implement account lifecycle management for editor accounts to ensure that people who no longer need to edit the website are removed without disruption to ongoing editors.
• Create and launch a new site for WRMC.
• Partner with Communications and Marketing to design a way to highlight social media on the sites of offices and programs which use these channels.
• Collaborate with Communications and Marketing to evolve our current design into a design system that can be used for multiple purposes.
• Continue to evolve the website for the Campaign for Middlebury and the homepage for Middlebury College.
• Revise and streamline the ITS site content to be more reflective of our audience needs.
• Design a process for highlighting scholarly works on our sites.
• Consider whether to continue to use the Group module for “office” sites and, if so, allow groups to have multiple newsrooms and migrate the menu configuration into group objects.

Drupal Forms (forms.middlebury|miis.edu)

• Complete the transition of all forms still in use to Google, Microsoft, Qualtrics, or another appropriate service to be determined.

Course Hub (courses.middlebury.edu)

• Migrate courses.middlebury.edu to an off-premises managed hosting provider, Pantheon, so that they are no longer geographically bound to Middlebury, VT.

WordPress (sites.middlebury|miis.edu)

• The sites currently at sites.miis.edu will be migrated into our managed provider, CampusPress, and have their URL updated to be sites.middlebury.edu.
• We will move the Middlebury Magazine site from on-premises hosting to a managed hosting provider, Pantheon, but its URL, design, and functionality will not change.

GO (go.middlebury.edu)

• Improve the resiliency of this service, possibly by fronting it with a caching system like Fastly, to ensure that on-premises service disruptions do not affect its operation.
• Change the authentication process from CAS to SAML.
• Update the design to match our other sites.

Course Catalog (catalog.middlebury.edu)

• Replace the Zend framework with Laminas or Symfony.
• Change the authentication process from CAS to SAML.
• Update the design to match our other sites.

Directory (directory.middlebury.edu)

• Determine a long-term plan for this service.
• Change the authentication process from CAS to SAML.

Omeka (omeka.middlebury.edu)

• Retire this service.

Concerto (concerto.middlebury.edu)

• Retire this service.

Long Term Plans

Public Drupal Sites (www.middlebury.edu)

We would like to eventually move our “components” from being created using Drupal’s Paragraphs module over to the core Layout Builder module which has an improved editing UI. Along with this we plan to conduct a UI/UX design review of the editing experience.

Our current site search system relies on Google Custom Search Engine, which is exactly the same as searching Google with the text “site:middlebury.edu” in your search string. We could be using other features of this platform, such as search promotion and refinements, or could pivot to a new search system with other features. We would like to explore our options in this space.

The Campus Map used to run on a custom system that used the Google Maps API which we then moved to a vendor-provided system. We think there’s a lot more we have to offer through this application to help people get around campus and explore the physical space.

As we consider a new policy for Google Analytics usage on our sites, we know that many of our editors would like access to some very simple stats about the pages on their sites. Google Analytics provides far more information than is needed and makes the necessary data difficult to retrieve. We want to offer our editors better access to the data they desire.